The number of unintentional injuries — which include overdoses from drugs, alcohol and other chemicals, as well as motor vehicle crashes and other accidents — climbed to more than 146,000 in 2015 from slightly more than 136,000 in 2014. Public health authorities have been grappling with an epidemic of overdoses from prescription narcotics, heroin and fentanyl in recent years. Xu said overdose statistics were not yet ready to be released to the public.

Deaths from suicide, the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States, rose to 44,193 from 42,773 in 2014.

Several experts pointed out that other Western nations are not seeing similar rises in mortality, suggesting an urgency to determine what is unique about health, health care and socioeconomic conditions in the United States.

“Mortality rates in middle age have totally flat­lined in the U.S. for people in their 30s and 40s and 50s, or have been increasing,” Case said. “What we really need to do is find out why we have stopped making progress against heart disease. And I don’t have the answer to that.”

Willis was a seven time all-pro and retired in 2015 after eight years. I think he had a chronic toe injury. Here he is in 2010 talking about his football training work ethic in a video that's been watched 4 million times (OMG! What a body!). And then there's this posted in September on CNBC as he talks about his new, hi-tech career.

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

"The threat to the First Amendment came from the Democratic side," Bewkes said during a conversation with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget at a conference in New York in a session that was webcast.

Bewkes made the comment after Blodget noted that Trump had criticized CNN for allegedly unfair coverage, and even threatened some sort of regulation in retaliation against CNN, owned by Time Warner.

"I don't think that's a serious thing," Bewkes told Blodget at the Ignition: Future of Digital conference. "If anybody is going to change the First Amendment — remember, the Democratic party had a campaign plank to change the First Amendment, and they were doing it in the guise of campaign finance reform."

The CEO, continuing his theme, even acknowledged that the news media does, indeed, lean left, as conservatives have long complained.

"That was worrying me more, because the press tends to miss that because they tend to lean that way, and therefore they were supporting what they were viewing, I think overly charitably, as something in cleaning up money in politics when in fact what it would do is restrain multiple voices," Bewkes argued. "So, I thought the threat to the First Amendment came from the Democratic side more. I think there won't be a serious effort on the Republican side."

Read by Mayor Schmidt at last night's meeting and sent around by Maria Cudequest.

“In recognition of the increased challenges faced by ethnic and religious minorities in our nation we condemn acts of violence against these people and affirm that we, as a Village Board, condemn any acts of unlawful discrimination, violence and intimidation that target differences in national origin, race, gender, sex, religion, disability, or political viewpoint across our nation. Such acts run counter to the rights and freedoms upon which our country was founded and to the core values of the Village of Croton. Croton is committed to fostering welcoming communities and an equitable, diverse, and inclusive society.”

The Republicans must be sooo happy that she's the Democrat leader in the House.

Here's her comments starting at the 3 minute mark, and the full video below:

The California congressman appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday and instead said the issue facing Democrats is simply a failure of communication.

DICKERSON: “The Democratic Party is in a moment of questioning about its identity. You were reelected to lead the Democrats in the House. What do you tell Democrats who want a new direction and then, go to you, what are you going to do differently?” PELOSI: “Well, I don’t think people want a new direction. Our values unify us and our values are about supporting America’s working families. That’s one that everyone is in agreement on. What we want is a better connection of our message to working families in our country, and that clearly in the election showed that that message wasn’t coming through. But we are united in terms of the security of our country, which is our first responsibility. To be smart and strong and not reckless in how we protect the American people, strong in how we protect our economy.”

Pelosi also downplayed her party's losses in 2010 and 2016, telling CBS's John Dickerson "You're forgetting that we went up so high in 2006 and 2008."

DICKERSON: "Here's my question, though, Democrats since 2008, the numbers are ghastly for Democrats. Democrats are down 10 percent, in the House down 19.3 percent and in governors 35 percent. The Democrats are getting clobbered at every level over multiple elections. That seems like a real crisis for the party?" PELOSI: "You're forgetting that we went up so high in 2006 and 2008, and let me just put that in perspective. When President Clinton was elected, Republicans came in big in the next election. When President Bush was president, we came in big in the next election. When President Obama became president, the Republicans came in big in the next election."

Monday, December 05, 2016

On Tucker Carlson's show. The NY Times "Public Editor" was a position created by the NYT about 20 years ago to act as a kind of Ombudsman or representative of the Times readers. So she's had to field much of the complaints by Times readers about bias in their news reporting. A very revealing & fair interview. She is honest.

The West’s retreat began with Obama, who reacted to (perceived) post-9/11 overreach by abandoning Iraq, offering appeasement (“reset”) to Russia, and accommodating Iran. In 2009, he refused even rhetorical support to the popular revolt against the rule of the ayatollahs.

Donald Trump wants to continue the pull back, though for entirely different reasons. Obama ordered retreat because he’s always felt the U.S. was not good enough for the world, too flawed to have earned the moral right to be the world hegemon. Trump would follow suit, disdaining allies and avoiding conflict, because the world is not good enough for us — undeserving, ungrateful, parasitic foreigners living safely under our protection and off our sacrifices. Time to look after our own American interests.

Saturday, December 03, 2016

And in fact his first meet since high school as he was redshirted as a freshman. He'll be throwing the shot put at the "Elm City Challenge" (Tim mentioned here) at Southern CT. State College, in New Haven. Then next week his meet is at Yale. Both indoors of course.

Colbert with a 9 minute anti-Trump monologue. Less funny as he goes along. I did enjoy Stephen's election night meltdown. I believe his show is in 2nd place in the Late Night ratings. Slightly ahead of Kimmel (which makes no sense to me) and well behind Fallon. The only time I see any of this stuff is on youtube.

This kind of thing is always in the back of my mind when I'm out on the Appalachian Trail. Hunting is not permitted within a couple of hundred yards of the Trail - but not everyone follows the rules or knows where the no hunting boundaries are.

While walking through the field, Davey was shot one time with a rifle in the area of his pelvis. The shooter, Alan Blanchard, 55, of Columbia County and his hunting partner, James Brown of Pine Plains, remained at the scene and assisted with rescue efforts, state police added.

****

Blanchard, who was charged with second-degree assault, is being held at the Columbia County Jail without bail.

The Times portrays this as an "Only Nixon could go to China" type thing; as in Trump a businessman is the only person who could bend a big corporation without being called a socialist. Well that's a stretch. Only in the mind of the NYT? Hit the link - excerpt below the link.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice president-elect, plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory to announce a deal with the company to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier.

Mr. Trump will be hard-pressed to alter the economic forces that have hammered the Rust Belt for decades, but forcing Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to reverse course is a powerful tactical strike that will hearten his followers even before he takes office.

****

It also signals that Mr. Trump is a different kind of Republican, willing to take on Big Business, at least in individual cases.

And just as only a confirmed anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could go to China, so only a businessman like Mr. Trump could take on corporate America without being called a Bernie Sanders-style socialist. If Barack Obama had tried the same maneuver, he’d probably have drawn criticism for intervening in the free market.

A woman doctor in a black dress and sneakers arrived to give him his lethal injection. She confirmed his decision and then gave him three doses. He died quickly.

Mark's death underscores how little the world knows about real-life cases of euthanasia, as opposed to the sanitised versions which appear in politicians' speeches. Isn't this just another case of society giving up on a person who had given up on himself? What comes next? Will Dutch drug addiicts be encouraged to take the cheapest drug rehabilitation program ever? Just one needle and you are "cured" for ever...

Mr Langedijk is writing a book about his younger brother’s disease and his death through euthanasia which will be published next year.

Following an extensive canvas of the area, he was soon located by troopers and Croton Police officers hiding in a nearby brook. Following a brief struggle, he was taken into custody.

Flores was charged with first degree robbery and fourth degree grand larceny.

****

While detectives were in Montrose checking for Flores at his residence, the New York State Police made notification that they had taken Flores into custody following an attempted robbery at the Food Town in Croton-on-Hudson.

Which I guess qualifies him to be the head Democrat in the House of Representatives. He has no other legislative record after 14 years in the House, with the exception of naming a few local Post Offices. You can't make this stuff up.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Yes I know plenty of people think he's a dumbbell. This is quite interesting - Below is something off the Newsweek website (I thought Newsweek was completely defunct, but I guess not) which I found linked on Ann Althouse blog. I read her blog several times a week.

In 2012, [Rick Santorum] was the runner-up to Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primaries. Ensconced since then in a Washington, D.C., law firm, Santorum had written a book that attracted little attention: Blue Collar Conservatives, Recommitting to an America That Works. But Trump had read the book, very carefully, in fact, and was intrigued. He called Santorum and asked if he would come to Trump Tower for a visit.....

Santorum agreed, of course—he was thinking of making another run at the White House, using that playbook. (He did, but got bum-rushed early in the primaries.) Trump then surprised Santorum even more by questioning him on details of his book and economic policy in general. What could be done with trade policy to help the working class? Was there any way to turn around the massive bilateral trade imbalance with Beijing? Could the White House be used as a bully pulpit to pressure American companies to stop sending manufacturing offshore? On and on they went, and Santorum left the meeting wondering what might happen if you mixed the power of celebrity with a blue-collar tent revival.

We now know the answer. Trump’s improbable run to the presidency—which was nearly derailed on several occasions by his lack of discipline—was guided by a conviction that he could, as political consultant and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone said last year, “rewrite the [electoral] map” by smashing the “great blue wall” of Midwestern Democratic states. And smash it he did.

While Peekskill detectives were checking for Flores at his residence, state police took him into custody following an attempted trobbery at the Food Town in Cortlandt, police said. Peekskill police interviewed Flores at the state police barracks and filed charges.

Officers were ables to identify Flores after distributing his photograph to the media and local businesses, police said.